


but i'd just like to say that i'm close to okay

by propernoun



Category: Lovely Little Losers, Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-22 20:45:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6093553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/propernoun/pseuds/propernoun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There is something building in your entire body, a nagging sense of missing what’s important, and when John presents you with facts and it sounds like a truth already parsed, you only know this: he is your brother and trust should be implicit, here.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>You do not tell Balthazar about it. There is something building there, too, but you don’t know what truths you have to fall back on with him, even though his own analysis, you think, is probably more reliable than anyone else’s.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	but i'd just like to say that i'm close to okay

**Author's Note:**

> Really just an exercise in self-indulgence and negative space, because I decided that what this fandom needs is more Peter character studies. My apologies to Chris Knox, and my man Willy Shakes, who both deserve better.

 

 

 

There’s this memory that you keep coming back to, which seems as intrinsic to you as breathing, and it’s woven itself into your dreams so often that you sometimes mistake it for one -

 

There’s the image of a beach without mermaids, because this is years before Bea enters your life (years before _everything_ \- before Ben, before Balthazar, before _John_ ), and you think you must’ve gone to Piha with your parents, because even more than a beach, you remember the Kitekite Falls.

 

There’s you, balancing one foot above the water, slippery rock under your shoe; your mum somewhere in the periphery of your vision. Your dad, just behind you, murmuring something which in your head sounds like _careful, Peter, don’t get overconfident or you’ll slip_ . To your protests that there were only pebbles beneath you, you think he replied that _well, it’s not so much landing as the fall_.

 

\- but you’re seventeen and you think you haven’t read enough Freud to know what it means.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

The January when you’re fourteen, Beatrice asks you about your family like it’s the most natural thing in the world. It’s boiling - of course it’s fucking boiling - and you struggle to remember what you had for breakfast, let alone what your summer has consisted of so far.

 

She looks at you with a smirk and adjusts her sunglasses. ‘Did you always want a brother?’

 

‘Er,’ you say, and the feeling of not finding the right words is foreign, ‘Yeah, sure.’

 

She lays down beside you and you pick at the grass next to your thigh.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

The space between John and you is made up of uncomfortable contrasts and antonyms, and even though you think you shouldn’t care, it provokes a want in you that you keep like a little reminder of your shortcomings. _Areas of improvement_ is what you’ve labelled it, like it’s a school assignment; you try to monitor your progress, but you haven’t got enough feedback to know if you’re moving forwards at all.

 

 

 

-

 

 

At the beginning of year twelve, the dairy around the corner from your house changes owners and the new ones seem to you to have an endless supply of children and helping hands. There’s a brief interlude where you catch yourself staring at an unfamiliar boy’s back, and your heart beats a fraction too fast -

 

you leave the toast you were supposed to get on its shelf and try to forget about it the moment you come home.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

You do not fall in love easily. You think you understand the difference between different kinds of attraction, but there are no demarcations and the older you get, the blurrier the lines seem to become.

 

You like to say that you _just like people_ and that’s not a lie, exactly.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

So you’re rejected - not let down gently, however kind the intentions are - and it’s humiliating in a way you’ve rarely experienced. You want this, too, to be _something to learn from_ , but you struggle to push it into a category where your brother takes up so much space.

 

You want your friends to be happy. That’s not an exaggeration or an embellishment of the truth, really; this is a defining characteristic, and everyone around you will assert that fact.

 

You film a group video and do not think about the way your shoulders slump after turning the camera off.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

There is something building in your entire body, a nagging sense of missing what’s important, and when John presents you with facts and it sounds like a truth already parsed, you only know this: he is your brother and trust should be implicit, here.

 

You do not tell Balthazar about it. There is something building there, too, but you don’t know what truths you have to fall back on with him, even though his own analysis, you think, is probably more reliable than anyone else’s.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

The birthday party causes you to spend too much time in front of your bathroom mirror, fixing your hair until there’s not a lock going in the wrong direction. You don’t know why it’s become so important to you, and you’re not going to think about the last party you went to with any of the Dukes; when you face your reflection, you look like you’ve been put together with painstaking attention to detail.

 

You spend very little actual time with Bea, that night, and even less with Hero; there are moments where your shoulder touches Balth’s and it feels like you’re on the verge of something that you haven’t got the words for yet, but you’re interrupted by a cake and an ensuing blur of anger.

 

Your own confuses you. Beatrice’s does not.

 

‘You’re not always right, you know,’ you shout and it tastes like bitterness.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Ringing their doorbell feels like trying to put out a fire with bare hands.

 

‘Are you apologising?’ is all Bea says when she opens the door, and you nod four times, quickly.

 

Hero is in her room, moving around the pictures that make up the collage by her bed. ‘Pedro,’ she says, when you’re just on the threshold, and smiles like she thinks it’s all right. The voice in your head murmurs _no, no, it’s not_ in response.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

You would like to say that you don’t feel as lost in September as you did in July, but you’ve promised to stop lying to yourself.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

You find yourself on Balthazar’s couch in the middle of spring. You’re passing a bottle of Chocolade between the two of you and he grimaces with every sip. ‘I can’t believe you like this, man,’ he says, and taps your wrist.

 

‘I don’t know if I do anymore,’ you reply, looking at his arm. It’s bruised and it bothers you more than you’d like to admit that you don’t know why. You think about all the questions you could ask, the things you think you maybe should say and never have, and you stay quiet for a second too long before you take a breath and exhale in his direction.

 

This, too, has the distinct feel of preparing for an examination.

 

You tell him, ‘I’m bisexual,’ and suddenly it’s everything, everywhere, your skin prickling and your legs shaking.

 

When he says _I know, we used to talk about it all the time_ and smiles, you wonder how many secrets he’s unpicked without asking anything at all; how much more you will have to stretch to accommodate his discoveries.

 

You take another sip from the bottle.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Throughout Christmas, you feel like you’re living in the margins of other people’s lives -

 

Ben spends half of his summer on the other side of the world; you and Bea only speak twice; and Balth just _seems_ preoccupied with family and Damien and that’s something where you distinctly feel that you shouldn’t impose

 

\- and you think that that’s not an experience entirely uncomfortable to you.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Wellington is different and everything and nothing stays the same. Ben drags you into a bath and you spend what feels like hours next to Balth, quietly moving closer and you know he knows exactly what you’re doing; his hand flexes, almost uncomfortably, and he looks away too often.

 

Wellington - Wellington _is_.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Here’s the thing about Welly - you’re genetically predisposed to hate it. You have lived practically your whole life in central Auckland, and if there’s one thing you know it’s the conversation that goes _I don’t live in Auckland, I don’t care_ and _yeah, nah, I’m tired of hearing about Cuba Street_.

 

When you drove down, the guilt you felt at leaving your hometown was almost matched by the relief of seeing a new coastline. Sometimes, when Balth’s left his door wide open, you stand in the front room and look  down the hills through his window and try to forget, for a second, that there have been other places in another city; that there was not always only Kelburn.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

You’re in love. That’s what you think it is, even though it gets swallowed by the static of people you meet and papers you’re taking. You can still feel it building in you, and between you, and it’s not so much that you want to refuse it as it is that you want _Balthazar_ to.

 

Drinking is not about that; the sex is not about that; your _name_ is not about it. Loving him feels like falling apart -

 

but so does everything else.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

When you climb through your window for the first time you feel like you’re breaking a rule even though you’re not. Being more elusive than Balth about _anything_ feels like a little like a triumph, and for a few days you feel like you’ve beaten Freddie and Ben at their own game.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Something you learn over the course of your first spring in Wellington: scansion is _difficult_ and reading iambic pentameter requires practice.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

There are things that you’ve shelved in your mind under the heading _big fucking deals_ and sometimes it’s like you can feel them flashing in neon colours. _Big fucking deals_ \- actual communication with your boyfriend; checking up on the Dukes; remembering that self-doubt is innate and okay - is interspersed with memories you used to rather not touch.

 

When Balthazar stops talking very much in the middle of March and something like a siren starts going off in your head, you try to rationalise your week-long delayed response. At rehearsal, Costa talks about things that _matter_ as though that’s a que and Jacquie nudges you a little bit, and you remember, for the first time in a while, that you probably shouldn’t be scared.

 

You block a chess scene and think that Middleton would rather have had his head severed than watch what you’re doing.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

‘Hey,’ you say to him, touching his elbow as he’s walking out of the kitchen, ‘Are you okay?’

 

Balth stops in front of the couch. ‘You keeping tabs on me, Pete?’ His smile is so soft you don’t think it was meant to sting quite as much as it does, but he has always been particular with his words.

 

‘Yeah.’ You try to only go for truth, these days.

 

He sits down next to you. ‘I’m okay, it’s just…’ Balthazar moves his hands but it doesn’t become a gesture so much as his arms hanging in the air. ‘Are you?’

  
You nod and take his hand. He presses a kiss against your temple.


End file.
